Plants small to rather large, green, yellowish green, rarely lightly grayish green, or olive-green, blackish brown, growing on tree trunks, shrubs, or rocks in dense or loose tufts. Stems erect, or erect-spreading, usually 0.5–2.0 cm long, sometimes to 6 cm long, rarely to 13 cm long, simple, forked, or much branched, with rhizoids at the base; in cross section, epidermal cells small, reddish brown, thick-walled; a central strand absent. Stem and branch leaves similar, erect and appressed, sometimes contorted, twisted, or crisped, plane, keeled, rarely undulate when dry, spreading when moist, linear, lanceolate, oblong-lanceolate to ovate-lanceolate, or oblong, ovate, 0.6–6.0 mm × 0.3–0.9 mm, acuminate, acute, rounded-obtuse, rarely hair-pointed at the apex; margins recurved or reflexed, rarely plane or incurved, often entire; costae single, strong, subpercurrent to percurrent; upper leaf cells rounded-quadrate, or polygonal, moderately thick-walled, with 1–3 simple or branched papillae per cell, rarely smooth, gradually becoming rectangular toward the base, somewhat smaller near the margins; alar cells not differentiated. Gemmae sometimes on leaves or rhizoids, rounded-cylindrical, clavate, rarely spherical. Autoicous, rarely dioicous. Perichaetial leaves not clearly differentiated. Perigonial leaves large, reddish brown. Setae straight or twisted, ca. 15 mm long; capsules immersed, emergent, or long exserted, ovoid or cylindrical, 0.7–3.0 mm long, constricted at the base, smooth, 8- or 16-ribbed, sometimes constricted below the mouth; opercula conic at the base, stoutly rostrate; annuli absent; stomata immersed or superficial, present in middle and lower parts of capsules; peristome double, rarely single or absent; exostome teeth, 8, 16, or absent, papillose or striolate, erect, reflexed, or recurved when dry; endostome segments 8, 16, or absent, broadly triangular, as high as the teeth or shorter. Calyptrae large, mitrate, plicate or smooth, naked or hairy. Spores spherical, 9–45 µm in diameter, papillose.